摘要:In this paper we study the contribution of inflows and outflows to the dynamics
of unemployment in three European countries, the United Kingdom, France and
Spain. We compare performance in these three countries making use of both
administrative and labor force survey data. We find that the impact of the 1980s
reforms in Britain is evident in the contributions of the inflow and outflow
rates. The inflow rate became a bigger contributor after the mid 1980s, although
its significance subsided again in the late 1990s and 2000s. In France the
dynamics of unemployment are driven virtually entirely by the outflow rate,
which is consistent with a regime with strict employment protection legislation.
In Spain, however, both rates contribute significantly to the dynamics, very
likely as a consequence of the prominence of fixed-term contracts since the late
1980s.